Charmaine Smith, director of The Family Residence chats with Jonina Dickey, in the lunchroom at The Salvation Army Greater Houston Area Command which served a Christmas day meal to hundreds of local men, women and children, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013, in Houston.

Charmaine Smith, director of The Family Residence chats with Jonina...

At 11:35 a.m. Christmas morning, a man perhaps in his 30s, clean-shaven and in a leather jacket, approached the receptionist at the Salvation Army Family Shelter in Houston with a burning desire to give. He had passed by a cord of people stretching past the street corner as he made his way to the entrance. They were waiting for the doors to open into the warmth of a holiday meal.

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